Enjoy Art and Lunch at Dallas and Fort Worth Museums

Strolling around at an art museum, you can work up an appetite. All of those paintings of fruit and vegetables trigger the stomach to rumble. Fortunately, three museums in the Dallas and Fort Worth area offer excellent lunch dining experiences. This article offers a comparison of the food choices at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Modern in Fort Worth, and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.

Light and airy, the Atrium Café, in the Dallas Museum of Art, with its Dale Chihuly glass sculptures in the large windows welcomes you. You order at the service window from a wide menu offering sandwiches, soups, and salads. Beer and wine are available as well as soft drinks. Prices are more than fast food, but reasonable. Get your drink and your order number, and pick a seat at the cafeteria -style tables. The chairs are comfortable enough, but the lunch area is a bit plain. There are small vases on the table for some cheeriness. Servers bring your food and it is presented in baskets or on a plate. Fresh, tasty, and plentiful, your lunch soothes your hunger as you plan the next gallery to visit.

Café Modern, at the Modern in Fort Worth, affords one a spectacular view of the floating pool outside the museum. Sleek and soothing, the café offers an excellent luncheon experience. Like a regular restaurant, you are seated in cloth comfy chairs at modern wood design tables. The wait-staff all appear to be art students specializing in something avant-garde. With a changing menu each season, Café Modern offers a nice variety of soups, salads, sandwiches, and entrees, with a special brunch menu on the weekends. Pricier than the Atrium, this lunch is also tastier and less perfunctory. You do not get a bag of chips with your lunch. There is flair in the presentation and a dash of whimsy in the sauces. Enjoy lunch at the Modern, and then catch a movie in their auditorium.

Finally, the splendid Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, gives you a chance to carry a tray. The Buffet Restaurant features chef Shelby Schafer's soups, quiches, salads, sandwiches, and desserts. While you walk a line, this is not cafeteria food being dished out with a dipper and plopped on your plate. Food is heated and prepared as you choose. There are some combination choices given - a half sandwich with soup, a trio of salads, quiche and a salad. You get regular silverware, not plastic, and are treated as if in a restaurant. Everything is delicious. Hot foods are hot, and cold foods are cold and again there is a bit of presentation on the plate. You will enjoy the Buffet Restaurant as much as you enjoy the Kimbell itself. This is a premier Fort Worth experience in the Arts District.

Unlike many attractions, which offer hot dogs or hamburgers, the art museums of Dallas and Fort Worth have upped the quality of the dining experience. All three locations offer a restaurant oasis amongst their art collections. You can enjoy a morning of art, eat some lunch, and finish up without leaving the buildings. Culture and food are a combination that cannot be beat.

Atrium Cafe
Dallas Museum of Art
1717 N. Harwood St
Dallas TX 75201
214-922-1200
Tues, Wed, Fri. 11 am to 2 pm
Thurs. 11 am to 8 pm
Sat., Sun. 11 am to 3 pm

Café Modern
The Modern -Fort Worth
3200 Darnell St.
Fort Worth TX 76107
817-840-2157
Tues. - Sun. 11 am to 2:30 pm

Buffet Restaurant
Kimbell Art Museum
3333 Camp Bowie Blvd
Fort Worth TX 76107
817-332-8451
Tues, Wed, Thurs., Sat. 11:30 am to 2 pm
Fri., Sun. Noon to 2 pm